


It's Lonely Inside My Head

by CanidSerpent



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Eventual Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Introverted Reader, Loneliness, Reader-Insert, Socially Awkward Reader, emotional angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:56:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1568555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanidSerpent/pseuds/CanidSerpent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lonely, adj.; destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship, intercourse, support, etc.</p><p>Frederick Chilton is a man who has known loneliness for the greater part of his life. And while the pang of it is familiar, he's come to accept it as a fact of life, cleaning the wound so it doesn't hurt anymore. </p><p>He finds a bit of that spirit in you. He takes it as a comfort, knowing someone else has endured what he has had to.</p><p>And perhaps that's why the both of you are drawn to one another, because it is the only way to avoid wallowing in that ever-present abyss of loneliness.</p><p>[S2, pre-Yakimono]</p><p>(Currently on indefinite hiatus)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. ~ Joseph Conrad  
_

* * *

To this day you still weren’t quite sure of what had drawn you to him in the first place.

And there was a forlorn part of your soul that still refused to accept it. The part of you that had grown so accustomed to the loneliness you had seemed to be cursed with in your youth. It hadn’t been your fault, you just didn’t know how to talk to people. They were confusing creatures to you; perplexed by the simplest of concepts and always concerned with things that were undeniably petty. The fact that your voice had a tendency to crack when confronted by others did not much help your case either.

As a result, your schooling years had been rough at best. And it was then during your adolescence that you developed your dependency on gestures, motions, and written notes to convey yourself to others. People couldn’t make fun of you if you never opened your mouth.

Eventually you found yourself a job as a pen-pusher for a local business firm. It wasn’t particularly glamorous, but it had enabled you to support yourself without being forced to talk to people.

During your lunch hours you liked to frequent a café only a few miles away from your work. It was homely at best, neither glamorous nor rundown to the point where its foundations had begun to break apart. It was a family owned business, run by a woman and her grandmother for about twenty years before you became a regular customer of theirs. You had a table by the window that you would always sit at, where you would contentedly indulge yourself in one of the various sweets the small establishment offered with a side order of coffee, black as you liked it. Sometimes you would linger a bit longer than you should have, so you could watch the other customers; watch how they socialized with one another. You watched college frat boys mumble about their upcoming midterms that none of them had spent time preparing for, you watched the young, high school girls giggle and swoon over the older boys in their grade, and you watched burgeoning couples hold each other’s hand as they shared one of the cafe’s delightful tortes.

You left only when the sights became too much for you, when your heart became filled with such a sense of loneliness that not even you could handle. Only then would you drive back towards the monotony of your job, where the pain of your lifelong predicament was no longer quite as obvious as it had been an hour ago.

This routine of yours lasted until one December afternoon, when you arrived to find a man seated at your usual spot beside the window. He did not turn to look at you, his attention divided between his observation of the passerby that strolled past the window and the ministrations he made with the hand that had settled itself on the head of the cane that was tightly held to his side. A waitress turned to look at you for a moment after she had set down his order of coffee, taking in the visible signs of discomfort that had begun to etch their way across every inch of your face. She offered you a small smile, but left you all the same.

People always left you.

Swallowing the bundle of nerves that had begun to writhe in your throat, you looked towards the other tables. They were full, filled with masses of people laughing and chatting as if it were 1999 again.

 _"Would you mind if I sat here?"_ You decided you would use your voice this time. And how you wished you hadn’t as the words lifted themselves from your tongue one-by-one, inch-by-inch. They were filled with cracks. And you could only bite your tongue in order to avoid further embarrassment.

He didn't seem to take notice of your voice. He glanced towards you out of the corner of his eye, barely straining his gaze from the window to acknowledge your presence before nodding his head ever so slightly to tell you it made no difference to him.

Gently, you eased yourself into the seat opposite of him, pulling out a book that you had brought with you as you waited for the waitress to bring you your usual order of coffee. Hidden behind the pages you took the time to observe him. He looked out-of-place at the homely establishment, the sizable price tag that you knew must have been attached to the suit and tie he wore seemed to suggest a penchant for something a bit more grandiose. But more than anything your eyes lingered on that rather ostentatious cane that he kept by his side. He did not appear as if he were particularly aged; hard lines had not become impressed into his skin, nor did he have that same labored breathing that some of your older co-workers did.

_Then, why does he need a cane?_

The curiosity ate away at you as you sat there, but you never said anything. You were doubtful he would appreciate your prying into his personal affairs, and you had already embarrassed yourself enough with your voice for one day.

You did not have to stew with your incessant curiosity for long, as he eased himself out from his seat not more than ten minutes after you had arrived. You glanced at him furtively from between the pages of the book you had been pretending to have been engrossed in for the last ten minutes, taking note of the slight stagger in his step as he ambled his way out of the tiny cafe. Some of the other patrons’ faces construed into expressions of pity, while others simply remained apathetic to the matter.

Yours took on one of uncertainty.

Your eyes lingered on his exiting form, and took notice of him once more as his path took him by the window you sat beside. Your curiosity of him and his predicament had burrowed itself deep into your heart, stirring the eggs of butterflies you had forgotten had nestled themselves inside the very arteries of your heart.

After silently thanking the waitress for your coffee in your usual manner, you found yourself filled with a sense of longing.

You hoped that fate would allow you to see him again.

* * *

It appeared that he had a preference for Tuesdays. Those were the days you always saw him.

Despite the fact that there was no interaction between the two of you, a part of you began to look forward to the days you saw him. Your Tuesdays became just a little bit brighter after seeing him. Although you could never quite pinpoint why being in his presence lifted your mood as it did.

Gradually, you found yourself sneaking glances toward him from the rim of your coffee mug, or from the pages of whatever book you had been assigned to read for your therapy. Your curiosity had not dwindled since the day you had first laid your eyes on him, but you were unwilling to let him hear those God-awful cracks in your voice ever again.

So you satisfied yourself with the occasional scrutinizing glance, during which you tried to deduce all you could of the man from his outward appearance.

You noticed he was always turned to the side, away from you, his eyes towards the window that neighbored the two of you, the other patrons of the establishment, or perhaps even lost in his own thoughts. One of his hands always rested on the glittering head of the cane he kept tethered to his side. You noticed sometimes he would grip it a bit tighter than normal. A subtle observation at best, one you noticed only from the tiny twitch of muscles embedded in his hand. But you knew it was a nervous habit. You had traded your voice for a keen eye when you were a child, and by then you had had several years to perfect your skill.

Of course you could never see any farther than that, he was too good to allow you peek beneath his skin so easily. Those moments of nervousness, from where they originated you still had no idea, lasted for brief seconds. By then he had regained whatever composure he had lost, his posture relaxed and oozing of a man who knew he held a position of power in the world.

* * *

Sometimes, when your nose was pressed deep into one of the many books you seemed to constantly lug around with you all the time, he would spare you a glance. He would do so discreetly, just as you did with him, although you were a bit easier to read than he was.

There was an overwhelming wave of shyness that seemed to pervade your very being, as if you would much rather hide in a dark corner than be in the homely little café where people laughed and chatted as if there were nothing better to do. He could tell from the way you leafed through the pages of your books, as you often did it frenetically, peering up from the pages only to bury yourself back within them in a matter of seconds.

He’d have forgotten you by now if it weren’t for the fact you decided it was your job to sit opposite of him every week. In fact, your silence made it incredibly easy to forget you were even there; he only took notice of you again whenever the waitress stopped by to hand you your order as you shuffled around in your bag for the notepad you always wrote and tore a page from to hand to the woman.

He had heard your voice only once since he’d started frequenting the café as a means to escape the hectic business of the asylum. By now it was a faint memory. He could only remember how your face had twisted into such an expression of pure agony once you allowed the words to slip out from your throat.

He had thought little of it until now, now that he had become curious of you. Curious of the creature that had made it their habit to accompany him during his weekly visits to the establishment.

He isn’t a man that’s used to the company of others, at least not for reasons other than business. The nurses and orderlies of his asylum whisper about him when they think he can’t hear them, speaking of him as they would a snake that had wormed itself into the heartland. And while he’s become prone to eating dinner with Hannibal Lecter since his evisceration, it’s not on a friendly basis. It only exists because of their shared background in psychiatry, and of course, the matter of Will Graham.

If he’s going to be completely honest with himself, he’s almost forgotten what the term means entirely. Friendship was not something he’d been graced with, not even in his youth. But he’s had time, years, to grow accustomed to the fact. It’s gotten to the point where it scarcely affects him anymore. Perhaps there’s a pang when he notices others his age in such a state of bliss at the joy their companions, but that’s more of envy than anything else (something he’s begun to experience more and more since his experience with Gideon in the observatory, although he’d never admit he’s allowed himself to become indulgent in such petty thoughts.)

He’s come to think of you as a constant in his life. One that he welcomes over his inmates’ newfound pastime of making passing comments about the sudden limp in his leg since the incident.

Not to say you weren’t still infinitely perplexing to him, but he takes what solace he can derive from your company. No matter how brief and seemingly unsatisfying it must have seemed to others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first attempt at a Hannibal reader-insert fic, spurred on by the recent Yakimono business. Originally, I was going to upload this as one cohesive work, but I think it'll do better to upload it through chapters, as I'm certain the length is going to climb up considerably before it's finished. 
> 
> I did aim to have a large degree of authenticity with this particular work, so if there are any lapses, do inform me. Please?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank all of you that have expressed an interest in this work, be it through a comment, a kudos, or a bookmark, as it motivates me to know people enjoy this work. I am also thrilled to know I've done well on characterization so far, as I often find that to be the most difficult part of doing this kind of work. That being said, if anything feels out of place, even if it is a seemingly insignificant word or line, please tell me so I can fix it.
> 
> Things are going to be progressing a bit slowly, but I feel that's more appropriate than speeding through.

It was late April when he decided he would finally speak to you.  
  
He turned to face you, and after taking a heavy mouthful of coffee, he pursed his lips for a moment and asked you what your name was.   
  
It was a simple question, one that you were tempted to answer with your tongue. But you faltered, thinking that he surely must have remembered the varying inflections of your voice from that December afternoon, and how he must have silently laughed at you for it.  Ducking your gaze from his, you slipped your hand into the bag you always brought with you, digging for the notepad your social interactions were dependent on.

Tearing a page out, you quickly scribbled your name with the ball-point pen you safely kept tucked away in your pocket. Quietly, you slid the torn page across the table, choosing to direct your gaze towards your fidgeting hands as you waited for his response.  
  
Most looked at you a bit strangely whenever you handed them notes rather than speaking. And you could often feel your larynx constrict whenever you heard the voices of others. Those melodious voices that were unobstructed by the ever-shifting tones yours seemed to be riddled with.   
  
It ignited a small fire within your breast, but of course, you could never speak of it. You could not hiss and spit at the people who liked to taunt you with their own unhampered tongues, you could only sit and seethe in anger. Perhaps you could muster a fiery glare in their direction, but you found most would pretend not to notice.   
  
And why should they? What worth were you if you refused to speak as everybody else did?

Lost in the flurry of thoughts that tended to swirl about in your head whenever you thought about the problem of your voice, you failed to notice him bring out his own pen and sign his name below yours.  
  
You looked up from your hands only when you heard the familiar crinkle the paper made as he slid it back to you just as you had to him. You searched his face as you took the note with a free hand, trying to find some misguided intention or other. But as always with anytime you tried to peek beneath the surface, he would shut you out.   
  
It was not something you were used to, and you could not even begin to express how much the fact frustrated you.   
  
Nonetheless, you felt the corners of your mouth twitch into a genuine smile. He did not return the expression, but you swore the color in his eyes became just a little bit lighter when he glanced towards you again. 

* * *

You learned his name was Frederick Chilton and that he was the chief of staff of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.  
  
You felt as if you had heard the name somewhere before, but you could not for the life of you remember where or when, or if you ever had at all.   
  
It would not be the first time you seemed to have a recollection of things that had never happened, nor would it be the last.   
  
And as you held the yellow slip of paper between a thumb and a finger, having read the text inscribed on it just short of one hundred times since that April afternoon, you wondered if perhaps your subconscious had dreamed up the whole thing just to appease your ever-growing sense of loneliness.

Your choice to become a selective mute had not come without a heavy price. Humans were a hopelessly socially-dependent species, and if you chose to betray that social nature, well, then you may as well have never existed in the first place.

You were like a ghost in that way, you supposed. Doomed to wander forever while you were incapable of attaching yourself to anyone or anything.  
  
You had told yourself long ago that you lived the way you did because God had always intended for you to live this way when He twisted the fibers of your larynx into a tight knot. Although that became a lie that had become increasingly harder and harder to believe as time wore on.   
  
You could train your mind to accept your socially unorthodox lifestyle, but your heart would refute it every step of the way.   
  
Once, you had thought the feeling would pass, that you would adapt to your existence. But you had found out early on in your adult life that it would not be so easy. Quite poignantly, the universe told you that such a feeling of contentedness in your life would demand far more effort on your part than you had initially imagined. Effort that you weren’t ready to exert at the time, just as you weren’t now, even as you sat by yourself in the large estate your parents left you, with only the sounds of the house to remind you that there was indeed a world outside of your self.   
  
A world you had once been more than content to observe at one time. But now you wanted to touch it, to mold it like so many of your peers in your university days had dreamed of doing. You wanted to unwind the iron chain you had wrapped around your throat and let your voice, and all of its varying tones, be known to the heavens. But then you would remember how the world would frown at such a display, how it would chide and slap the hands of the beasts they had worked so hard to ensure would never rise up to lay their grubby hands on the world. Taint it with their miserable and misshapen fingers, their eyes that always insisted in looking in two directions at once, or their vile tongues that could not tell an ‘a’ from an ‘e’. It is then that you began to recede again, within the shell of your loneliness, so the world does not brand you with the disapproving gaze you know it will turn to you the very moment you allow even the smallest and most insignificant of words to slip up from your throat.   
  
You were not born to sing as others were. You were born in an empty silence that would come to define you. You looked listlessly towards the finer examples of humanity, and then the less than exemplary bits too. Reaching, coveting, something that would fill the emptiness inside you.   
  
But silence was silence, and no matter how many people you could find to blame for your predicament that familiar sense of hollowness would always be there.   



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for being so late with this segment, I've been trying to get these out on a weekly-biweekly basis, but this one has been especially trying. This part is also a bit short (and split from the original chapter) but I feel splitting the two sections into multiple chapters will allow me to better have the effect I intended.

He can count on his fingers the amount of times you’ve willingly chosen to speak since your initial meeting.

There is, of course, the time you asked to sit opposite of him back in December. And there was another occurrence not too long ago when the usual waitress was out sick and had to have her position filled by another waiter for a day. This waiter was not used to your unique method of ordering, and after glancing at the puzzlement in his eyes at your refusal to communicate your order to him verbally, you quickly chirped your order to the man, not wanting your voice to linger any longer than it was necessary. You’ve also made casual, speedy replies when some of the café’s other customers speak to you in greeting or polite inquiry. And he’s noticed the physical discomfort that settled across every inch of your features whenever you allowed words to pass from your mouth rather than from the ink of your pen. Your very frame tensed, your eyes averted away from whomever you had chosen to speak to, and your teeth settled over your bottom lip nervously whilst you entangled your fingers with one another, distracting yourself in a vain attempt to pretend nothing was happening.

It was part of the reason he chose to humor you in your unorthodox method of socializing. It allowed him to communicate with you on a level you were comfortable with, one that freed you of sweaty palms and evasive glances. 

You’ve still been tight-lipped as to what you’ve chosen to divulge through your notes, but the tenseness that had seemed to previously overtake the entirety of your being had dissipated, when you were in his company, at least. He’s learned as to why you resigned yourself to silence. You’ve written your reasons to him in bits and pieces, telling him that your voice is ever-partial to cracking, despite your speech therapist’s best efforts to aid you in training it not to. 

He’s noticed your varying inflections in those few times you’ve allowed your strangled cords to throb against one another, though he has never said anything about it. There wasn’t a reason to; it was painfully obvious you were aware of your own circumstances, and he saw no reason to further your awareness of your own conditions. 

He’s told you things too, mostly about his work; about the patients he works with on a daily basis, or the state of the asylum itself. And you’ll smile as he does so, even if you don’t always quite understand what he’s going on about. But sometimes he’ll tell you about himself. It was never much, sometimes it was even less than what you were willing to tell him about yourself, but it was something nonetheless. He wasn’t normally so forthcoming, but the genuine interest that sparked in your eyes whenever he had something to say encouraged him to interact with you. He appreciated your acknowledgement of him, if only because you’ve been the first to give him the recognition he deserved (even if it might not have been in the way he’d always imagined).

However, today you weren’t there.

It was the first time since you met one another on that cold, winter afternoon that one of you had been absent. And as much as he tried to tell himself that it didn’t bother him, it did. He’d grown used to your company, fond of it even, and he couldn’t help but think that you must have been avoiding him somehow.

He found himself looking towards the window from the corner of his eye as his free hand drummed noiselessly upon the table, as if expecting you to suddenly come stumbling by, a lingering hope that became harder and harder to hold onto as he realized he’d already been sitting in the café for an hour.

Alone. As he had been before you’d wandered into his life.

With a heavy sigh, he rose from his seat. A frown curved across his lips as he again found himself scanning for your form beyond the window, or buried somewhere amongst all the other bodies within the establishment. He didn’t see you, and finding no further reason for him to remain, he ambled his way out, gripping the head of his cane a bit tighter than he normally would as he did so.

He tried not to think of you as he made his way back to the asylum, because he wasn’t entirely certain if he was ever going to see you again, and that thought alone produced a pain in his heart he hadn’t felt for years.


	4. Chapter 4

He didn’t see you again until two weeks after the first incident.   
  
And by then he had become leery, unsure if whether the interest you had expressed towards him over the number of months he’d come to know you was genuine, or if it had been a fraudulent scheme you had conceived simply so he would leave you alone as he had before. He was unused to the attention you so readily gave him, unused to those feelings of being wanted or loved in some shape or form by another human being. You were the first person to give him those feelings besides his mother (although he suspects she only ever did it out of pity. Pity for the poor, friendless boy who entered med school fully aware that his palms began to sweat at the faintest smell of blood) and he found himself clinging to the idea of you as a friend, (perhaps as something more if he was lucky) when the darkness came to overtake him. It was also in those moments that he remembered his usual fortunes with relationships of any sort, (or his lack thereof) and a part of him he’s tried to bury in the deepest recesses of his mind reminded him that it wasn’t likely to come of anything, that you were going to leave him just as everybody else has at some point in his life, leaving him to stew in his own loneliness for however long it took to rid himself of the feeling.   
  
The thought made it easier for him to forget about you during your unannounced and unexpected absences, and he wasn’t quite prepared to confront you about the matter now that you had shown up again. So, he directed his attention elsewhere; towards the window beside the two of you, the mug of coffee he kept a tight hand around, or even the familiar waitress who sauntered around the place.   
  
You continued to behave as you normally did during your meetings, although he noticed you could not help the lingering sense of worry from filling in your eyes as you made your characteristic fleeting glances to and from him. There was a certain heaviness in your eyes that he could not remember seeing before in all the weeks he’d spent with you at this very table. You clasped shaky hands around your coffee cup after the waitress set it before you, letting the liquid slide gingerly into your throat as if you were afraid of overdosing on it if you drank too much all at once. You had always been vulnerable, despite his attempts to lessen your anxiety so that he could get to know you better, but this time it was a bit much, even for you.   
  
Silently, he watched as you tore out another page from your notebook, quickly scribbling something on it before sliding it across the table in your usual fashion. He took it with his free hand, still glancing towards you out of the corner of his eye, as he quietly read what you had written. You had told him that your boss had started cutting out some of his employee’s lunch hours, and that one of your female coworkers (who you altogether really couldn’t stand, but dealt with nonetheless) had asked you to take over her shift so she could leave early to spend some extra time with her boyfriend.   
  
He ran your words through his head, trying to find some fault within them as you looked towards him expectantly. There was a coldness in his eyes as he returned your glances, brought out by his rising distrust of you since your abrupt disappearance. And it wasn’t a feeling that healed itself easily. Rather, it had burrowed itself deep into the crevices of his heart, infusing itself with the loneliness to become something much worse, something degrading.   
  
You would not have been the first to provide him with the illusion of a genuine sense of companionship only to yank it away as he grew used to the feelings it brought out in him. And despite what he knew of you, he could not shake away the thought.   
  
But he would not allow you to steal a glimpse of his damaged pride. He accepted your apology silently, sliding the slip of paper back to you with no further questions. Though he averted his eyes from yours in the manner he had before he’d come to accept you as a factor in his life.   
  
He could tell that you noticed the change. Your movements become stiffer than they had been, as if the tenseness of the atmosphere had wormed its way into your bloodstream and begun to corrode the muscle within. And it wasn’t long before you felt forced to look anywhere but him as well.   
  
He could tell it was a struggle for you, what with the way you turned your neck in a vain attempt to direct your attention away from him, trying to hide your eyes which desired nothing more than for their gaze to fall on him once more. And a part of him wanted them to, that crude, emotional part of him that clung and reached for you when he was immersed in his deepest and darkest nightmares.   
  
He remembered the gruesome details of his evisceration all too well. When his thoughts wavered he could remember vividly the image of his own unsightly organs as Abel Gideon had ripped them out from his abdomen. But at night, he experienced the event all over again in perfect clarity. The scar on his stomach leftover from Gideon’s handiwork and the doctors’ attempts to stitch him up did nothing to help him forget either.   
  
He’s been too lonely and too friendless for too long to stand the idea of losing you, whether it be due to the icy and apathetic grip of death or through his own doing. And you’ve shown him your own loneliness. You told him how it created a void within you, and the only reason you started to frequent the homely café was to fill it with the thoughts and feelings of a thousand other voices. But you hadn’t realized how those voices would affect you, how they would be a cruel reminder of your own disability, and how they would only make that void you were so desperate to fill even bigger than before.   
  
You told him that the gaping hole within your soul had started to shrink since you began spending your lunches with him.   
  
You were alike in that way. And perhaps that’s why he’s come to look forward to your company; there was an understanding between the two of you. An understanding of what it really meant to be alone, not just the isolation or the wistful glances one would exchange with the people who surrounded themselves with companions, but the utter depravity of the feeling. That feeling of being encased in ice, awake, but not truly alive, not in the true sense of the word. But still being able to feel and witness everything that went on around you, and being powerless to affect it.   
  
But you had shaken his faith in you, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to risk becoming involved with you when the lingering voice in the corner of his mind constantly reminded him that you could leave at any moment. And that you leaving was, unfortunately, the most likely outcome of any relationship he chose to pursue with you.   


* * *

You weren’t sure why you told him that you had gotten held up at work for the past two weeks. But you had, and now he wouldn’t so much as look at you.   
  
You cursed yourself inwardly. Was your lie so feeble as to not even be capable of fooling those it was meant to hide the truth from?   
  
The truth of the matter was that you had been visiting your mother up in Chesapeake over the course of the past two weeks. A social worker had contacted you a number of months ago, informing you that your mother had contracted a form of breast cancer. And being the good child you were, it was your duty to support her through her suffering, financially or otherwise.   
  
The only trouble was that your mother had not always been the most accepting of people, and she could never quite comprehend why the use of your voice was such a source of anxiety for you. The social worker you’d come to work closely with on the subject of your mother encouraged you to spend time with the woman, take her out in public, do anything to make the presence of the cancer less visible. You had taken her out to eat last week, and while you normally wouldn’t have thought of the activity as being so harrowing. Your mother never truly believed that there was a discernable issue with your voice (despite the fact that you informed her that you had alternating appointments with a speech therapist and a psychiatrist because of it) and as such would force you to speak as you passed by people in the streets, despite the more than obvious discomfort it caused you.   
  
Thus, you had begun to gradually look less and less forward to your visits, to the point that you spent the majority of the night before dreading as to the number of people she’d make you talk to the next day. You’d spoken to your psychiatrist about your anxieties, how they’d eat you up from the inside before, during, and after you slept, and how sometimes those same anxieties would send you spiraling into mini-panic attacks. He’d offered you the same advice he always did when you informed him of your more crippling anxieties; to acknowledge the source of your anxiety, and repeat to yourself that everything would be fine, or to think of something or someone that was a source of relaxation for you, that could be a rock for you to cling to.   
  
Naturally, your mind was drawn to Frederick.   
  
And as your psychiatrist had said the thought would, thinking of him in those dark moments at night seemed to curb your anxiety, if only for a little while. You hadn’t told your mother about him, aside from the note you’d dropped about your weekly visits with the lonely psychiatrist in a coffee shop every Tuesday afternoon after she had pried you for information as to what you’d been up to. She hadn’t seemed to care, only enough to make a snide joke at the idea of you being able to share a natural, if sociable relationship with anyone else, much less a man considering how she always had to force you to talk to people. You had said nothing in response, only taking the sutures she had split apart with her words and sewing them back together over the wound she had reopened. After that display, you had seen nor further reason to speak of your personal affairs with her unless she demanded to know.   
  
You had been reluctant to inform Frederick of the true reason behind your consecutive absences because half of you was embarrassed by the woman blood had bound you to, or at least uncomfortable with the idea of staying with her any longer than it was necessary. The other half of you, the part that was the stronger of the two, didn’t want to drag him into your personal issues. Cancer was a dirty word. It made people change. It demanded pity for the pitiless, a raw kind of emotional suffering experienced nowhere else, and forced its spectators to bend themselves over backwards as it did its work. And even though you were not afflicted by the condition yourself, you had no desire for his pity as you stood by and watched as death’s cold and bony hands reached for your mother’s internally decaying body.   
  
So you had lied, telling him the first story that had popped into your head. Though, that had only served to make the initial wariness you had spotted in his eyes that much more apparent. Perhaps you had even validated it.   
  
Clearly, your absences had hurt him in some shape or form, and now he didn’t know what to think of you.    
  
For a moment, you thought to wrap your hand in his, as a sort of physical reassurance that you hadn’t forgotten about him over the past two weeks. But you decided against it, withdrawing the hand you had begun to extend across the table back into the pocket it had emerged from it. You had wounded him, and in your experience, wounds needed time to heal, not prodding from the blade that had made the incision in the first place.   



	5. Chapter 5

Weeks passed, and still neither of you had spoken (or written as the case might have been) to one another since that tense afternoon. To the common eye, it would seem that your relationship had regressed, with the two of you stealing glances at one another when you thought the other wasn’t looking and clinging to a stubborn silence despite how much or how strongly the voids inside your hearts desired nothing more than to shout and scream at one another about the recent turn of events.  
  
Neither of you were willing to confront the other about what had happened, so you each receded into yourselves. Clambering back into that ever familiar shell of loneliness you had both dwelled in prior to your acquaintance last December. It was a petty conflict at best, but it was one neither of you knew how to fix on your own. So you each suffered in your own version of a familiar silence, tongues twisting around themselves as they desired for you to speak, but were kept quiet by the affairs of the heart.   
  
It wasn’t long before you had to endure some afternoons alone as well. They were uninformed and abrupt absences, like yours, but they were somehow worse. Because they weren’t there because he had no other option or because something came up suddenly, they were there to show you how he felt when you decided not to show up for two weeks with nothing said prior to your disappearance. And it worked, more than you’d ever like to admit. You felt the familiar loneliness that had circled your life since your adolescence, but also a confusion, and you found yourself searching for something that had gone wrong during your last meeting, just as he had when you decided you weren’t going to show up one day. There was nothing to find, of course. Your meetings had become strained, consisting of shifty glances toward one another while feelings of distrust and guilt poisoned the atmosphere. And when he would return after an absence, there was an unmistakable trace of smugness in his eyes. Because he knew how being alone surrounded by so many voices made you feel, you had told him so yourself in great detail, and he felt justified in his actions. Perhaps it was petty in the eyes of most, but you could not deny you had not thought of doing the same thing to all of the people who had taunted you about your voice when you were younger.   
  
It had become a vicious cycle. A cycle that you knew would be neverending until one of you chose to step out of the circle. However, to do that would require sacrifice. And in your case, that sacrifice would require you to harness the voice you had spent several years hiding from the world. It would not have been the first time you physically spoke to him, but it would require more than a single word or phrase as you were used to. This time, you would have to let your voice run for several minutes, even as all the cracks and fluctuations rang loud and clear in your ears. To somebody like you, it was the equivalent of bearing yourself and all your vulnerabilities for all to see.   
  
Sacrifice had never been easy for you, but now, you felt it was the only option if you ever wished to rebuild your fractured relationship with the psychiatrist who was just as lonely as you were. And you never wanted to return to that void within your heart, that already had threatened to swallow you back up again.   
  
You would do _anything_ if it meant you would never have to return to that miserable life of loneliness again.


End file.
